


aster flowers

by pastasaucer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Families of Choice, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Not Epilogue Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reincarnation, allura deserves so much more, sort of lol - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-20 19:59:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17029059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastasaucer/pseuds/pastasaucer
Summary: Allura is gone, and the world is finished with her.Time, however, is not..Or, the five times in which Allura returns, and the one where she is finally home.





	1. Chapter 1

There is an old man named Time who steals the ticks from beneath your pillow as you sleep.

He is waning and foolish and is constantly searching, wandering, needing.  When she is a child, Allura’s mother tells her that she must always find delight in what she does, use her days wisely, less they are stolen from beneath the pads of her fingers.

Time twists and time falls and time rises like the tide, pushing against the shore again and again and again. It is one of few things in the world that cannot be held within the hands of an Altean. Perhaps that is why so many fear it; time takes, and unlike so much in their world, it can never give back.

She wonders, then, if the old man and his sash full of stolen ticks and doboshes is watching her now, berating her for her foolishness, gathering all that he can from her withering lifespan and stealing the memories from her lips as she says goodbye to her family one last time and enters the cold, bleak abyss that will host her soul for the rest of eternity.

 

\---

 

He must be, she thinks, when the darkness turns to warmth and the pain is remedied by the soothing gush of fresh air flowing through her lungs and life is once again thrush within Allura’s heart.

 

\---

 

The Alteans do not believe that death is a finality.

They are an altruistic people; perhaps the idea of a longstanding silence following life has always been a foreign, alienated concept, too grievous to consider.

Even when the war began.  More so than ever, she would say, because they all needed to believe that if worse came to worse, what they greeted after passing would not be something to fear.

Allura doesn’t know what she believed.

Whatever it was, though, it certainly wasn’t _this_.

 

\---

 

It is not Altea.  

Not even close.  

At first, when her mind is cloaked in a haze and the mantra of _what_ and _how_ and _why_ plays over and over in her head, she thinks that maybe, this is some form of her home in the afterlife.

Because the grass is green and the sky bleeds blue overhead, and yet the world seems for more _burdened_ than before, weighed down by the depth of gravity and loss.

Something, she knows, is missing.  A connection to the world around her, a sense of awareness, a light burning bright in her chest.

She recognizes the new world she lives in with a muted sense of shock, of recognition, of pain, as the mist cloaking her senses begins to dissipate. 

It is Earth.

And the flimsy, lonely body her soul now resides-- that she has been born within-- is completely and utterly human.

In this new life, her name is not Allura.  

She feels it in her heart, of course, as if it is engraved into her very soul, never to be forgotten.

Allura has lived through one war, died in same.  

She knows well enough that the one thing they can never take from you is your name.

But the people, here, do not.  Do not know of Allura. Do not know of wars and bloodshed and pain and violence and loss.

Her family.  Her new one, at least, because no one could ever take the place in her heart that is reserved for metallic lions and their frayed companions, for a mother and father she once knew, for a man of wit and kindness.

But they are nice enough, and she supposes she owes them for their kindness. The same as before, Allura is an only child in this life. Her parents are young.  Far, far younger than Allura.

They are none the wiser to her perhaps-too-quiet demeanor as she grows, take her midnight, sweat-soaked screams as your regular, childish nightmares.  

After all, it's not like they know any better. 

 

\---

 

She can still remember leaving. Dying.  Feeling everything flow from her fingers, feeling the numbness fray her nerve-endings raw.  

It was her duty.  To protect her friends.  Her family. And there is so much regret there, of course-- because what she wouldn’t do to go _back_ to the life of love she knew-- but what is done is done.

Except here she is, in the body of a human child that does not know how to feel quintessence from within, that can do nothing but exist. Riddled with a new name, with an old soul.

Allura does not, regrettably, know enough of earthen history to know if finding her family would be at all possible.

It is obvious that the war-torn existence she knew Earth to once reside in has not occurred yet; that being said, she doesn’t know when it will.  

Or if it will, for that matter.  

She doesn’t know when or where any of them would be, if she would even be able to find them.

It is impossible.  

Unobtainable.

And perhaps that is why she is so hesitant to _search_.  Because she knows if she tried, she may be able to find something.  A remnant. A reminder.

But the fear that what she finds could be false, could inspire hope before stamping it into the earth…

Alteans do not believe in the human concept of hell, but sometimes, Allura wonders if this is some sort of punishment.

She grows-- so _quickly!_ \-- and the wounds still feel fresh in her skin.  The memories rush through her mind each night and render her mourning for what she once had.

If she tried, she could blow all of those around her out of the water.  Out of the ground. Into _space_.

She has thousands of years worth of knowledge running through her mind and knows more about engineering (complicated alien tech, for that matter) than the highest authority on earth could ever know.

She is the princess of the Alteans, the diplomat of the galaxy, a paladin of Voltron.

But maybe she fears.

Maybe she is tired.

Maybe each morning she wakes and can’t help but think it’s all one big dream, and one of these days, she will be met by the bleak void of the afterlife.

Purpose is something lost on her, she thinks.

Out of reach. 

Allura busies herself with these autonomous traditions of human life-- though she is never one to have many friends (because still, there is _no one_ who could understand), she still engages as well as she can to fend off the typhoon of loneliness always churning within. Humans have such silly nuances.

Each morning she looks in the mirror and sees a face that, bizarrely enough, holds  _traces_ and  _remnants_ of before-- the shape of her eyes, the line of her jaw-- but is different just enough to always remind her where she is. 

Who she isn't.

\---

 

The grief, still so fresh, still so _young_ , is inflamed when she is seventeen human years old.

She stays late after school to help tutor students.

The place she supposes is supposed to be home is within walking distance; when she is done for the day, the sky is dark, the air cold.

But no sooner is it bleak and desolate is it alight, in flames, riddled with ash and smoke.

The sidewalk is flooded with sirens and red and blue lights. There are people screaming, people crying.  

They watch her walk closer with pity.

She sees the flames consuming the building, twirling up and up and up and mingling with pillars in smoke, just the same as the ones that consumed Altea.

 

\---

 

They tell her there was nothing they could do. 

There were issues, apparently, with the building's wiring.  Something short-circuited.  What started in one apartment spread to them all. 

Her parents are gone. 

(And she can’t help but feel guilty, because she is bereaved, of course, but not nearly as much as a normal teenage girl would be in this situation, she thinks.)

And perhaps it's something like  _this_ that makes her angry.

Because this would not occur on Altea.

Because something as silly as faulty wiring, faulty engineering, would not incite an event that took so many lives.  All because of a mistake.

(It is times like these that truly remind her of how rudimentary the tech on this planet is.)

There are others, of course, grieving.  What happens makes the news, spreads all over the internet.  Kids at school send her pitying glances. 

They hold a ceremony for all of the victims.  Allura doesn't particularly want to be there, but she supposes she should make face.  Be there to remember the people who played a hand in... raising her. More or less.

Neighbors send her teary smiles and heartfelt nods.  She speaks to the family of the old woman who lived down the hall, to the friends of the couple that lived downstairs. 

There is a person, however, that she does not find herself recognizing. 

Immediately, at least.

A young boy with hunched soldiers and messy black hair.  He lingers off to the side, expression screwed. 

And there is something there, burning in her chest. A whisper at the back of her mind.  

It's said that an Altean never forgets a grudge-- their memories don't allow them to.

She prays that hers is not failing her now.

Apparently, she is told, in a solemn whisper from a passerby who she tugs to the side to question, the boy's father was a firefighter. 

He died while trying to save lives.  

 _Such a shame_ , she is told _, leaving a son all alone in the world_.

The blazing fire in her mind is growing.

With bated breath, she asks the boy's name.

And so quickly, so familiar, is the air in her chest, is the wind catching in her brain as her legs move on their own intuition.

 

\---

 

“Hello,” she breathes.

The boy startles and wipes at his cheeks.  They are red, blotchy, and tear-soaked.

He eyes her warily. 

“Who’re you?”

She pauses.

(That is, regrettably, not as easy a question as it should be.)

“A friend,” she says, after a moment. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

She can tell he tries to hide the way his lips tremble.

“Everyone is,” he gives, and it is so spiteful and biting she is given whiplash.

At the familiarity of the malice, the softness protected by a mask of hostility.

“I get it,” she whispers.

“No, you don’t.”

“I do,” she says, “I swear I do.”

The boy sends her a tear-stricken glare. Pretends like he doesn’t sniff as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“He was a hero, wasn’t he?” she says quietly, smiling something rueful.

Remembering.

“He was.”

"But it's also  _not fair_  right?"

And the boy pales, watery eyes blowing wide and lip wobbling. 

"It's not," he whispers. "It's  _not_."

They both pretend like the tears down the boy’s cheeks aren’t there.

 

\---

 

The child’s name is Keith.

He does not who she is.

But that is fine all the same.

 

\---

 

He is something so painfully lonely that she nearly doesn’t know how to deal with it.  The Keith of now is so different from the Keith she knew, from the Keith of the future-- perhaps the biggest change is that the one before her now doesn’t know how to _hide it_ yet.

(And perhaps that is the most saddening in itself.)

She knows he will find solace in the future.  He will find comfort and family and friends that the Keith of now cannot even imagine.

But he is not the Keith that she knew, that she knows.

He is the Keith who has just lost a father and the Keith who thinks his mother-- his mother, a _human_ , could you ever believe-- is gone without a trace.  Who is so fearful of emotional intimacy that he snarls at open palms like a caged animal.

And he is also the small boy whose expression, so bashful and bright, lights up when Allura swings by to bring him lunch or take him out for ice cream or help him out with his math homework.

Allura will not _lie_ ; maybe, on one hand, part of it does hurt.

Because it is proof that the world will move on-- that there is another Allura, her original self-- already existing within this world.  She can never claim that spot again.

Proof that her family does not know who she is.  That she is just as much a stranger as a passerby on the road.

And it brings the question back.

 _Why_?

Why is it she’s here, what’s the _point_?

(Sure, she can _find_ them, now, but is it crueler that she is affixed with memories that all of them have yet to make?)

She is not this world’s Princess Allura.  That is not her place to fill.

And yet she is still _Allura_ , and she will always have her duty, to protect her people, her _family_ \--

And family right now is the boy before her, in need of a home.

 

\---

 

Allura turns eighteen and her peers and teachers balk as she shoots down acceptances to top-notch schools in favor of attending the small community college just on the cusp of the desert.

Even more so when she uses what funds are left from her parent's bank account to purchase a cozy little house nearby that's just big enough for two people.

 

\---

 

(And again and again what pains her most is his  _fear_ , is his immediate desire to say  _no,_ despite the hope shining in his eyes.

Because he doesn't want to be a  _burden,_ because  _you don't have to_.

She sees it is left unsaid, the  _I know you'll leave one day just like everyone else_.

And she wishes she could hug him and tell him  _I won't, I won't, I won't_ , but some part of her knows that there's a chance he'll never believe her.)

 

\---

 

He is still someone who is quick to irritate, slow to eager.  Keith is still Keith, no matter how much hand she has to play, now.

He almost never needs her help with homework anymore.  She can see the triumph and pride that glow in his eyes when he shows her his tests and quizzes and the cheeky smile when she finishes checking his homework, only to find no errors in sight.

When he is not at school, he is in the cozy front room of her small home in the desert, scowling and glaring and smiling and reminding her _why_.

They go to see movies (an experience she has grown to enjoy) in the city and search for lizards in the sand and though he claims he can't sit still she has them sit down once and a while to read a book.

Eighteen years later and Allura  _still_ has a shoddy grip on human holidays, and Keith sends her odd little glances as he leads her through the motions of common traditions.

On his fourteenth birthday, they go to traveling fair that's an hour outside of town.  She eats fried foods and cotton candy until she's sick and nearly vomits when Keith insists they ride one of those stupid vortex rides, but seeing his smile is all worth it.

Keith grows, and every day he seems closer and closer to the boy she once knew.

It is no surprise when he comes to her with a pamphlet from the Galaxy Garrison, brought by a speaker who came to his school.

 _He has to go_ , he says, talking about the simulation the speaker let them use. _He was good, today._

It’s not her place to say no.

(Nor would she ever.)

And yet one day there is still a knock on her door and she nearly succumbs when she opens it to see a man-- a _boy_ with hair that is all black, with a face unscarred.

“Hello,” Takashi Shirogane says, so idealistic, so _young_ , in his Garrison uniform. “I’m a representative from the Galaxy Garrison, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to you about your little brother.”

Keith, loitering behind the man, kicking at the porch and staring at his sneakers as his cheeks flush red, peers up at her warily.

And Allura _beams_.

 

\---

 

She stays.

When she sees Keith less and less as the boy is held by the responsibilities of the Garrison and when he loses himself in the world of stars and moons and dreams, when is mind is overgrown with possibilities that leaves her heart swollen, she is there. 

He is still in her front room, eyes so _hopeful_ , hopes so bashful, as he speaks to her.

When Keith gets into a fight with one of the boys in his class, Shiro is not the only one quick to arrive at the office door, ready to defend him with her claws and teeth.

He is also not the only one who has to reaffirm to the boy again and again that she  _isn't going anywhere_. 

(He tells her later, begrudgingly, that the boy was making fun of him because of his parents. Or lack thereof.

She doesn't know how to feel when he also mentions in a mutter that the boy poked fun at _Keith's weird sister who lives in the desert,_ _too, and I couldn't let him say that_.)

(He's still totally grounded, by the way.)

She meets Adam, a man she only knew in name, before.  He is smart and kind and leaves her heart aching.

When the preparation for Kerberos mission starts, she does all he can to persuade Shiro that he doesn’t need to go. The man is excited.  Anxious.   _This_ , he says,  _is his last chance_. Keith is over the moon and jealous at the same time. 

It makes her stomach churn. 

She knows what will occur. What Shiro will be forced to endure.

And on one hand, she knows that if anything, it is necessary. Because Shiro’s return is what sets forth _everything_.

But she can’t allow herself to sit by and do nothing.

(Even though she knows her pleas are falling on ears that do not _listen_.)

 

\---

 

And when the news inevitably announces the _tragedy of three lives lost_ and the Garrison plays PR as it accounts for what has occurred, she is the one to hold Keith close as he slips away, as he retreats back into the shell she met at a gravestone those years ago.

 

\---

 

It is not her place to say what will occur.  That he is not gone, that sooner or later he will be back and there is so much more than he knows, couldn’t fathom--

( _and now she can’t see Keith, the paladin; she sees Keith, the boy in her living room, the boy smiling so serenely, and she can’t help but fear--_ )

But she can’t.

Because how would she ever explain _that_?

 

\---

 

Keith is in trouble once again.

She is the only one there, now, when the principal calls her in and tells her they wish to expel the boy. For his  _behavior issues_. 

Keith, indignant, muted, is sitting outside, staring at the carpet with some sort of vengeance.

And he is bewildered when Allura chews him out right there in the waiting room, scolding him in front of the secretary until his ears burn red.

(As does the principal when she gives him the same treatment.)

The boy, begrudgingly, stays in his class. 

Allura worries.

He is retreating into himself, she notices, hiding in his room, only coming out for dinner. 

Something is brewing.

And she thinks she knows what.

 

\---

 

She would like to say she has relatively steeled nerves, thank you very much, but Allura nearly faints when she opens the door one night to find Keith smiling sheepishly with Shiro-- fit with a white streak of hair and strip of scar tissue across his nose-- slung around his shoulders, and three frighteningly familiar teenagers standing behind him.

\---

 

"And what is a pretty lady like you doing in the same house as  _this_ loser?" 

"Dude," Keith hisses, swatting the back of Lance's head, "that's my  _sister_. Knock it off."

Pidge, tiny and hesitant, snorts and crosses her arms across her chest.  Hunk smiles a broad grin, cheekily asking  _are you sure about that_ as Keith rolls his eyes and Lance smirks.

Allura's heart is  _full_. 

\---

 

He has the audacity to ask her how she's  _been_. As he lies down on the couch in her front room after being kidnapped by the Galra for over a year. With an arm missing.

Idiotic  _men_.

 

\---

 

She knows that it's coming.  She just doesn't know  _when_.  Or  _how_.  

It's about to, she knows. It's bizarre to think that the Blue Lion has been here all along, destined to be discovered.  She's missed Blue.  

She wonders how it will work.  It's going to be odd, so very, very odd, to see herself.  To see a face--  _her_ face-- that she knows was hers, a name, a role, a person she once was.

Still is. 

Keith and Shiro are both antsy to move; the latter cannot remember anything that has occurred but knows enough that they are all able to piece together bits into some sort of sense of mission.

 _Voltron_ , she hears Shiro say, causing lights to flare within her mind. 

So close.  So, so close.

She makes them all go to bed before they can decide to go renegade. It's in the early hours of the morning, but " _V_ _oltron will still be there after you sleep for a few hours",_ she tells them. 

And if she  _catches you up, Keith, there will be consequences, so don't try anything._

("Damn, Keith, anyone ever tell you your sister's cooler than you?")

("I told you to  _shut up_.")

 

\---

 

When she awakes, they are gone.

There is a note on the kitchen counter written in a brief scrawl only a Kogane is capable of.

 _Had a lead, urgent_ , it says.

It is right next to a mug of tea, still steaming. 

 _Be back soon_.

Her heart tells her differently. 

Something settles in her stomach.

 

\---

It is all over the news.

There is a Garrison representative at her door telling her that there was an  _incident_ and  _four students have gone missing_ and  _we're so, so sorry Miss, if there's anything you need_ \--

She knows the truth, of course.

Knows where they must be, what must have happened.  It was destined to.  She knew it was coming.

Doesn't make it hurt any less.

 

\---

 

She meets Colleen Holt for the second time, a woman who believes herself to have lost everything, and who believes Allura has, as well.

When everything first happens and there are journalists on her doorstep and calls from the local, state, and national news piling up in her voicemail (all of which she ignores, of course) she recognizes the voice of Mrs. Mcclain, echoing through the halls of the Garrison as she berates official after official, asking  _what do you mean they're just_ missing? Hunk's family, mourning and grieving, begging for someone to find their son on national TV.

They become familiar faces to Allura's home. 

What starts as an invitation to Colleen becomes an open palm to all, and suddenly her front room is filled to the brim with family, reminiscing on past memories, pondering what the future will be. 

And she holds her tongue, forces her lips close.  

It will be years before they all know the truth. Before they are able to see their loved ones again.

They all hurt so, so much, and she wishes she could  _help_ , wishes she could say  _no, no, no, I know what's happened, I know what will_ but it's not her  _place_.

So she serves tea and offers beds and couches and lends a listening ear when she can.

Adam comes over often enough, typically with a bottle of wine in hand, always muttering  _I told him, I told him, I told him,_ not even aware that Shiro had returned since he first left. Still believing him to be dead.

She holds her tongue, holds in her heart that they will be back soon enough.

Humans are so young, so frail. A few human years is  _nothing_. 

Until then, she waits. She will.  She  _can_.

 

\---

 

Because eventually they will be  _home_ and she will be ready when the day comes.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo so i am NEVER going to forgive them for what they did to allura,,,,,,,,,,, she deserves the WORLD.


	2. Chapter 2

Consciousness approaches her slowly.  

It floats, blearily, like a nebula amongst the cosmos, infiltrating the edges of her mind until awareness-- though mute-- creates roots in the crevices of her skull.

Allura feels the heat, burning and burning and burning. It spreads through the frayed ends of her existence, mingles with the intersection between _Allura_ and the universe, blurs the lines of one to another, one and the same.

Heat. Breath.  Bursts of stars, of earthen soil in her palms.

Alive again.

 

\---

 

It’s bizarre, she thinks, because she knows-- or at least she thinks she knows, has always based her experiences off of the notion-- that time is linear.  A timeline.  The world is vast and complex but her mind is a storybook that she knows all the words to.

Complicated, no doubt, but an Altean’s greatest friend is their own memory.

But it’s bizarre, because when she holds recency as a standard in her mind, she remembers last being caught between two worlds, thread through a needle. Saying goodbye.

Dying.

Tangible.  If she reaches out, it’s just at the tips of her fingers.

And yet within her consciousness is the presence of another.

A life brought anew.

A life lived on earth.

(A life with a young boy desperate for family and rotting with loneliness.)

And even though she _remembers_ and _feels,_ it is faint on her senses, her memory.

_Two_ lives lived-- both intrinsically Allura, both flowing from the same river bank.

She doesn’t remember dying in her… _second_ life, per se.  It just sort of fizzles out of existence.  Her memory-- her supposedly pristine, no-nonsense memory-- is fuzzy to begin with, and the harder she attempts to recall the farther it is out of reach. Leaving an ambiguous, dissatisfied taste on her tongue.

Two notches in a tree.  

And now, she supposes, a third.

 

\---

 

Though it still doesn’t feel right to be a human, it is not nearly as jarring as it was before.  The chilled loneliness beneath her skin is still cold to the touch, but at least now she’s used to it.

Burning, deeper, however, beneath the chill, is the question on the forefront of her mind, bigger now more than ever. Cosmic fireworks and bits of broken sun igniting within her skull. 

What’s the phrase?

One’s a coincidence, two’s a fluke…?

Or maybe she’s just making that up.  Things are fuzzier, now.

What she _can_ place within her mind, however, is the desire to know _._

Know why she’s here, know what her purpose is, to have her soul strung out again and again and again.

Pulling her farther away from the shores of Altea with each breath she takes.

No matter how far she searches within the alcoves of her mind, it is out of touch. Impossible to find.

(With her luck, she supposed she wasn’t expecting any answers to begin with.)

The torrent of grief is still there, of course, etched into the lining of her ribs, always whispering beneath her breath.

A solemn question churning within her gut.

Exasperated. Hollow.

_Why_.

 

\---

 

It quickly becomes apparent that though she may be human once again, this life is not at all the same as the one she lived before.

Unlike before, here there is no pseudo-family to be found.  To go up in flames.

Allura is six and living in a foster home filled to the brim with souls somehow as lonely as her own and is now startlingly aware of why Keith despised the house they shoved him into after his father died.

Leaves her all the more relieved that she pulled him out when she did.

Perhaps this is… fitting, in a way.  Her name is not the same nor is the face she possesses, but perhaps this scenario feels more realistic than what was before.

There’s no pretending.  No acting like there is still a semblance of family to be found.

She said to the universe _I am alone_ and the universe replied _and_ _so you are_.

People are cold and chilled and it isn’t to say that she’s not used to the pain of distance from others, but in her brain that is a child-sized and human-shaped, it feels like bursts of grey matter are blurring her senses. So painfully alone.

Allura has fought through the loss of her entire people.  Her father and mother, the children living in the capital with such broad grins, welcoming eyes, the woman who pinned flowers to her hair when she was young and dancing on Altea.

(Five humans, so young, so _idealistic_ , all entrusting their very souls within her palms—)

And yet the pain echoes within her all the same.

 

\---

 

These people around her expect her to fall.

Like a thin, fragile leaf from a tree in autumn, scattering across the ground and dispersing into a million, tiny pieces.

As if she is a lost cause.  Without roots, without a family to anchor her to the sandy floor.

Apparently already far too damaged to be fixed.

And before, it would have been a sentiment she would have lost herself to so, so easily.

When she was draped in grief and fear, wariness spilling from her seams, too lodged within herself to even attempt to look outwards.

Truly alone.  Without a speck of family left.

That if she dug too deep and searched too far, if she stuck out too much-- the world would crumble beneath her feet. There was no point to try, before, because there was always the awareness that what she could find could crush her into oblivion.

But she knows better, now.

There are ideals and memories thrush at the back of her mind and growing blossoms from synapses, and she _knows better, now_.

And she will not allow herself to fester for any longer.

 

\---

 

She is seven, and she is in trouble.  

Her foster mother’s expression is twisted into a scowl as she berates Allura with what she probably thinks is an intimidating expression.

“Textbooks are _expensive_ and your brother--” is that what he is? “--needs them for school.  They’re not like your coloring books. Neither is his homework. And you know that stealing is _wrong_.”

She wouldn’t call it stealing, per se, as much as borrowing.

Said _borrowed_ calculus textbook is currently back in the possession of her foster mother’s son, who is staring down at it blankly at the kitchen table.

“Are you listening to me?” the woman asks, still fuming. “There are consequences to your--”

“Mom.”

The boy’s vacant gaze is still stuck to the textbook.  To the page Allura had had it turned to.

The woman hesitates, still pinning Allura down with a look, before turning to her son.  She says his name, expression confused--

“ _Mom_.”

And that seems to draw her attention.  She begins towards the boy, hovering over his shoulder.

“Wha--”

Her mouth clamps shut and her eyes widen into hollow plates.

Allura fights down the smug triumph filling her chest.  

The woman plucks the sheet of crumpled notebook paper that had once been the boy’s homework-- now covered in scrawling answers, equations, and graphs-- from its place on the table, sitting before the boy, next to his hefty calculus textbook.

Matching sets of eyes, both equally blank, in a stupor, lift from the textbook to stare at her.

She thought the pink crayon was a nice touch.

 

\---

 

Allura, of course, knows better than to only drop hints of her perhaps larger than normal intelligence at her home.

Maybe it’s mentioning to the awestruck woman who works in the library at her school that she really, really liked _Hamlet_ , and if she has anything similar, Allura would love to read it.  

Or _accidentally_ going on a long, rambling tangent about calculating gravitational pull when they talk about space in science class.

And perhaps the tipping point, when they have to do that awful standardized testing one day in class, and the score on the computer screen that pops up when she’s done makes her teacher’s expression go slack.  

However it happens, Allura ends up in the principal’s office one way or another, smiling serenely as the woman at her side clenches her jaw tighter and tighter and tighter.

_Ma’am, your daughter is a bright, bright girl…_

(And Allura would be lying if she said seeing _that_ sort of expression on her foster mother’s face didn’t make a visceral sense of _triumph_ well up in her chest.)

 

\---

 

“Hello,” says the man in the crisp grey uniform at the door, who is, regrettably, not Takashi Shirogane and his smooth skin and dark hair. “I’m a representative from the Galaxy Garrison, and we have reason to believe that your daughter may be a great asset to our school…”

 

\---

 

The cadets escorting her apologize, somewhat jokingly, for the relatively bleak surroundings of the Garrison’s grounds.  

She doesn't know how to tell them that no matter how boring the neverending sight of endless beige and craggy cliff sides may be, it is a place so much more homely and peaceful than the blood-soaked sand and tension-cloaked air she can pick out from her memories.

(Than what may be in the distant future.)

Here in the world of stark rock mountains and twisting dunes of sand, of unforgiving fissures in the earth and blank, open canvas for a sky--

Here is home.  

Or the closest she’ll find, of course.

Her presence seems to be an incongruous disruption within the constant energy of the Garrison. She is viewed with an air of disbelief, of breath dipped in stupor, shock, and scorn.

Recruitment, of course, is a key aspect to the livelihood of the Garrison; she knows better than anyone. And whilst it’s not uncommon from the norm for officers to handpick cadets they find promising ( _Takashi Shirogane, miss_ ) not many are chosen so directly and _particularly_ as in Allura’s case.

These humans are so quick to believe what they want, fall into ideals already cemented by their own minds. Her presence alone is proof enough that she must be of worth and is meant to be within these halls-- if she wanted to, she could blow all of these cadets and senior officers out of the _water_ \-- and yet they are so quick to hold themselves to a more superior standard and retreat into their own insecurities.

But if she’s being honest, she could care less of what they think of her.

Her mind is somewhere else. Focused on something far more important.

Purpose.

 

\---

 

They do not intend for her to attend classes as a normal student would; rather, she will be given an instructor of her own, someone to guide her through an independent study of sorts.

(To be frank, it’s not as if she needs one at all.)

Clad in a tiny, stiff uniform and so small her feet don’t reach the floor, with only a trunk of stray knickknacks and clothes to her (false) name, she sits in the uncomfortable chair in the office of the man named Commander Iverson on her first official day as a Garrison cadet and awaits for her supposed instructor to arrive.

Someone who, evidently, is late.

Which doesn’t seem to be an uncommon occurrence, if the twitching of Iverson’s eye is any indication.

Seventeen doboshes have passed when the door finally creaks open.  Iverson’s mouth twists into a sour line and Allura turns in her seat, eyes wide and breath held.

“Sorry for the wait,” says the man, _finally_ , fixing his glasses and grinning sheepishly as the door shuts behind him. “You wouldn’t _believe_ the traffic.”

The man winks at her, and a thrilled sense of delirium is overtaking her mind and burning through her veins.

 

\---

 

“Samuel Holt,” the man says, shaking her hand as Iverson nearly combusts at his desk. “Nice to finally meet you.”

And _the pleasure is all mine_ she gives in response is spoken on a hovering whisper, caught in the office light.

 

\---

 

Before, he was a man she knew in name, from relation, as a figure to admire.  She had bonded with the man over tactics and planning and rooms cloaked in tension and urgency.

Here, though, is a man with fewer wrinkles and lighter eyes, with a smile that isn’t weighed down by painful memories looming over his shoulder.

He is a jovial figure, no doubt; his antics, somewhat amusing, always cheesy, are commonplace amongst the Garrison, it seems, and are viewed with both exasperation and annoyance.

(Though the latter is almost always exhibited from a single, sour commander.)

The others here still treat her with such _wariness_ ; she is an outlier, an unfamiliar variable. Not at all normal.

Unhuman, if you will.

The cadets view her in a light of disdain and snarls out of hormone-fueled necessity; swollen egos that refuse to be bruised by her presence are quick to sharpen their edges and slice her in two.

And when the adults here aren’t doing the same, they are acting with so much _hesitance_ , eyes betraying what they know; the sight of small hands and gangly limbs displace the intelligence that resides within her brain, create a disconnect from what is true and what is seen.

If Allura is the outlier, however, then so must be Samuel.

His playful demeanor is not unique to her-- or, more so, her image. Her age.  It is not the teasing, happy-go-lucky nature of one attempting to cheer up a child, but the good-hearted nature of a man free in his own self.

Because he speaks to her as if she’s a person.

As if, laughably, she is a _human_.

There is still disbelief at her capabilities and stupor when she hands him back his projects just as quickly as he assigns them, but it is quickly outshone by something impressed shining in his eyes, something that wishes to push her even further.

He has no qualms with allowing her to go on her own path and take initiative on projects, inventions, innovations.  

Despite the gawking and ruffled feathers of the many engineers they encounter, Samuel takes her by the gloved hand and guides her through the tall, arching developing rooms filled to the brim with the Garrison’s ships and satellites and scanners, lets her roam free through the jungles of wires and creations.

Beneath her fingers, the tech here is but a plaything.  She can spin stories and gems out of wires, create mountains out of scrap metal.  What would take one of these men decades to figure out takes a tick in her mind.

But her own knowledge can go so far before she hits a wall.

There is no quintessence is to be found, here.  Nor can she feel it thrumming beneath her skin, reverberating through the ground. Something once so integral to the Altean people, and now--

Now all she has is wind and stone and light, guided by human hands.

(And she _could_ , of course, attempt to find a way to access it, find the cracks in the universe that would make it so, but then _how in the world would she explain that_?)

So she continues with her studies, develops ideas in her mind and puts pen to blueprints, never forgets what is to come and what she can do.

Allura knows she could lose herself easily in textbooks and ideas and inventions until reckoning day comes.  Disappear from the Milky Way’s burning sun and shield herself from Earth’s lonely moon.

And, as she finds, Samuel seems to, as well.

For _you have to understand, young lady; my wife’s gonna kill me if I don’t bring you to dinner at least_ once _._

 

\---

 

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“So… you’re Dad’s student, huh?”

“That’s me.”

The room sends her mind whirling to the cabin on the Castle of Lions, to a place covered in trinkets and knick-knacks and ideas, wrapped up in one big _I swear I know where everything is_!

“He talks about you sometimes,” says the girl hanging upside down from her bed.  Her hair, long and light, pools onto the carpet. “Mom likes cooking for other people. She’s excited.”

Allura hums.

Her heart is alight with buds and her mind is glimmering with fireworks, and she can feel the pleasure-soaked sense of familiarity, an old yet just as welcomed friend, settle into her bones.

“So you’re _really_ a student at the Garrison?”

“Basically.”

The girl groans. “No _fair_ ,” she says, arms flopping onto the ground beside her. “My brother’s a cadet there. But I’m gonna be one too when I’m older.” Her nose scrunches. “Still have to wait, though.”

Allura smiles, something knowing blossoming on her tongue. “I bet you’re already smarter than half the people there.”

Surprise colors the girl’s features. Sheepish, and... something else.

“Not as smart as you,” she mutters.

Allura pauses.

She can’t exactly tell the girl that maybe Allura has an unfair advantage, seeing as in terms of _knowledge_ , she has her beat out by more than a few thousand years.

But when taking that into account, she also has no doubt that the young girl before her-- or, the girl she would one day be-- is more than capable of outhinking Allura in a heartbeat.  

Still, she settles with a shrug, something warm spilling into her chest.

“I mean it,” she says, smiling. “Your dad talks a lot about you, too.”

(Which _is_ true, by the way.)

The girl’s expression lights up, pleased and surprised. Baby fat still clings to her cheeks, and her eyes shine with a glimmer only a child is capable of.

It nearly gives Allura whiplash.

(It’s bizarre to think that they’re technically the same age.)

“I guess some of Matt’s friends _are_ pretty dumb,” she says, sitting up with a sharp grin. Allura snorts.

The girl’s smile melts, however, into an expression that’s hesitant, wary.

A jolt of fond remembrance nearly steals the flooring from beneath Allura’s feet when the girl gnaws on her the nail of her thumb, a gesture so, so familiar within her heart.

“Do you really think I can?” the girl asks, voice quiet. “Get into the Garrison, I mean,” she quickly adds, cheeks coloring.

Heart bursting, Allura nods.

Before the familiar voice of Colleen Holt echoes through the hallways and into the girl’s bedroom announcing _dinner’s ready_ , Allura tells the girl that she’ll deal with the dumb cadets and especially idiotic boys until they’re both at the Garrison to do it together.

But until then, they can still be _friends_ , perhaps?

With a sharp grin that warms Allura’s heart to the core and sends her mind wandering back to days in space so, so long ago, Katie Holt tells her that she thinks so, too.

 

\---

 

Pidge had always been one seemingly so young, in Allura’s eyes.  

All of her paladins had been, of course, but Pidge, the most optimistic-- perhaps the most _naive_ \-- had always been a separate category of spry youth, similar to morning dew.

So to so see her even younger is something so bizarre that Allura nearly can’t place it.

Pidge-- or Katie, she should say-- has the same innovative personality that Allura remembers, if only a bit more sporadic.  As with any child-- human, Altean, or else-- there is a recklessness present that can only be characterized by the young and naivety of a child.

There is also, Allura finds, a deep-rooted sense of _loneliness_ burdening the girl-- something she can’t exactly say she anticipated.

Katie Holt’s above average intelligence has set her miles above her peers, and in doing so, has also created a _distance_ between her and anyone her own age.

She often cuts herself short when speaking for what is perceived as too long when they’re lounging in the girl’s room and hesitates to indulge in her interests when prompted to speak. She’ll send Allura a wary glance as if already anticipating the reaction-- the annoyance, disdain-- that she must be used to at school.

Beautiful, bashful Pidge.

(In a way, it makes Allura’s heart ache.)

The Holt family is a tight unit, no doubt, and it doesn’t take long before Allura is swept into their antics.

She has a spot at the dinner table and sleeps on Katie’s trundle bed (staying up far later than they should, to Mrs. Holt’s chagrin) and rides up to the Garrison after each weekend with a groggy Mr. Holt and even groggier Matt, when the boy comes home.

True to Allura’s memory, Colleen Holt-- though certainly assertive when the time calls for it-- is a bleeding heart at her core, and dotes on Allura as much as she can.  Matt, far more ditzy and laid-back than she remembers, ruffles her hair and sends her winks in the hallways at the Garrison throughout the day.

Her own work at the school does not cease; many of the superior officers are still reluctant to take her studies and inventions into account, but with Mr. Holt backing her, she finds herself finally gaining some sort of footing in the school.

It’s mostly bureaucracy, she thinks. The superior officers who haven’t actually sullied their hands with work in a long, long while, but still maintain some sort of image within the school.

Pidge tells her while lounging about the small workshop they’ve allotted Allura that _adults really are dumb_ , _huh_.

Wincing only slightly, Allura halfheartedly agrees.

Whilst it has been slow-going on some avenues, Allura has been able to find _some_ company with a cluster of the engineers within the Garrison.  There are still the pretentious and unwilling, of course, but she finds many who have far less trouble taking Allura’s ideas into account. Applying them, too.

(Allura’s desire is not _fame_ or _warrant_.  If someone else has to take credit for her work in order for it to see the light of day and be put into action, then so be it.)

When summer occurs and cadets travel back to homes and families some miles away, Allura settles into the living room of the Holt’s split-level with Bae-Bae the bull terrier in her lap and a warm melody playing at the back of her mind.

Home.

 

\---

 

Perhaps it is now more than ever that she can’t help but feel the guilt well up in her chest and cause ripples to spill out within the hearth of her chest.

Every one of them-- Samuel and Colleen, Matt and Pidge-- are so _full_.  Complete.

There is a light within their eyes that has yet to be dimmed by the horrors of war or the lost-- real and assumed-- they would endure.  

As they grow older-- _closer_ to the time in which she knows-- the light in Pidge’s eyes she first mistook for childish naivety is something evidently more intrinsic within the girl, and it sends a chill sweeping through Allura’s veins.  

It is a warmth, wide and full to the brim, that will be consumed by frost once the girl is forced through the lost of her brother and father.

(And now more than ever she can’t help but think this is _punishment._ Punishment for her failures, her fallings as a leader.  Parading these lives as someone innocent, pretending to hold some sense of ignorance when it couldn’t be farther from the truth.)

She wonders how much longer it will all last.

 

\---

 

And she is answered, apparently, when she is thirteen years old and Samuel sits before her with an anxious smile and unfortunate news that he will be unable to fully devote his time to teaching her anymore.  There is another project-- _classified, sorry, you’ll know soon enough_ \--that’s reaching its final stages, and needs his full attention.

“It’s not like you need me anymore,” the man jokes, ruffling her hair. “I don’t think you have for a long time, don’t you think?”

It’s supposed to make her feel better.

(It doesn’t.)

 

\---

 

Right around Pidge’s birthday that year, there is a knock on the door and a guest at dinner and an energy bouncing from Matt and Samuel that leaves Pidge curious and Colleen rolling her eyes.

There’s been something brewing in the air and tonight is the night in which the metaphorical beans are finally spilled.

“There’s somebody I’d like you all to meet,” Mr. Holt says, as he ushers a man and not quite a stranger into the kitchen.

Allura, meanwhile, fights the dust causing fissures in her lungs.

(She really needs to stop meeting Takashi Shirogane like this. It’s not good for her health.)

Samuel introduces the man as _Shiro, space pilot extraordinaire_ , and explains that there is a very important announcement to be made-- and _no, it’s not that Dad has a secret boyfriend, Katie_.

Allura has no doubt that Colleen is aware of what’s going on, if her fond yet anxious expression is any indication, leaving herself and Pidge to be Matt’s supposedly clueless audience as he finally breaks the tension and announces the big, exciting news of the evening.

_Kerberos, a small moon within Pluto’s orbit…_

 

\---

 

Shiro becomes a familiar face to the dinner table, sitting in the spot just across from her own.

He speaks to her with a curious smile and warm expression, confessing that he’s always meant to speak to the Garrison’s very own Girl Wonder but never had the chance to.

He is just as kind and charismatic and good as she remembers.

(And perhaps that’s why it hurts so viscerally.)

They tell her and Pidge and Colleen that the launch is planned to occur before the year ends, if all goes to plan.

Pidge is over the moon with excitement, if only a little jealous. She tells Allura that they’ll have to plan their own space adventure to go on once she joins the Garrison.

(The irony threatens to knock Allura off of her feet.)

Allura, meanwhile, finds herself drowning in projects in her workshop, the clock ticking on the wall jeering as time goes away and away and away…

She can’t say anything.  She knows she can’t. If she did, it could ruin _everything_.

And yet there is still that burning desire to hold them all back, ask them if they really have to go, if it’s so necessary.

(She knows the answer already, of course.)

Samuel, always the perspective, is quick to clue in on her anxiety.

He tells her not to worry.  There hasn’t been a fatal accident in space travel in decades, and they’ve all been prepped for any risks that could occur.

_Not everything_ , Allura thinks, sitting on the couch between a cheering Colleen and Pidge as they watch the televised launch and see the ship burst into the sky.

_Not everything_.

 

\---

 

It is not even a year later when they are in the same spot, room cloaked in darkness as Colleen Holt clutches at her heart and the news bleeds across the TV screen and Pidge releases such a wounded noise, _no, it can’t be true_ , and Allura wonders, faintly, what her purpose really is at all.

 

\---

 

The stubbornness she once knew is back in full force, and Allura is thrown back to a time when she was faced with a young human girl desperate to do anything to get her brother back.

Back then, Pidge had been willing to abandon her role as a defender of the whole _universe_ if it meant finding her family.

Allura supposes she can’t even be surprised, then, when the young girl takes it upon herself to hack into one of the most tight-lipped government facilities in the world.

Colleen is still chewing the girl out hours after Iverson dragged her to the house with the declaration that she would be _barred from ever returning to the Garrison_ , _less she wants to face legal arrest_ , and handed over a hefty bit of documentation that no doubt said the same thing.

“I _had to_!” Pidge shouts, features screwed tight as her feet pound against the stairs. “They’re lying-- they _have_ to be lying, don’t you see?  They can’t be dead, and I’ll _show you_!”

Colleen’s expression crumples into something pained, and Allura keeps her eyes glued to the tile and lips sealed shut as the slam of the girl’s bedroom door echoes throughout the empty house.

 

\---

 

The Garrison’s library-- or, the public one, at least-- has always been a relatively quiet place. Not many cadets take advantage of it, and the ones that do know better than to disrupt its quiet.

It is on an off chance when she ventures out of her workshop to grab a resource at just the right time to see a _boy_ , apparently, thrown over a book at one of the tables at the back of the library, and Allura is filled with something equal parts fond and exasperated.

There’s a squawk as Allura swipes the ID badge hanging from the person’s uniform, and more than a few _shushes_ are sent their way in the meantime. She pays them no mind.

Large brown eye, shielded by familiar thick lenses and framed by newly chopped hair, look up at her slowly, warily.

“Pidge Gunderson?” Allura articulates, quirking a brow.

Hesitant, sheepish, and yet totally unapologetic:

“Don’t tell Mom?”

She can only roll her eyes.

 

\---

 

Pidge was never wrong when she spoke of how idiotic some of the cadets her could be, and Allura is sure that sentiment is only furthered with each day of class the girl endures.

She stops by Allura’s workshop often, each time with a new bucket of complaints to be heard and another reason she’s going to kill her team as well as _dumb, stupid Iverson who has the biggest stick up his ass I’ve ever seen_.

When she isn’t plotting murder she is investigating, Allura knows, spurred by a sense of dissatisfaction within her chest that will never be extinguished.

Matt and her father must be alive, she is sure of it, and she knows she will find proof while she’s here.

She tells Allura such.  Shows her what evidence she’s found, the tools she’s created (and maybe stolen, _but don’t you dare snitch_ ) and talks about all they can do together, once Dad and Matt are back, once they’re a _family again_.

And Allura finds it increasingly hard to keep it unknown how close the girl truly is.

 

\---

 

It is night and there is someone shaking her awake and a hushed whisper of her name in her ear.

Allura awakes to see Pidge hovering over her frame, eyes wide and hopeful. There’s something in her arms and a headset hanging from her neck.

“Roof?” she whispers, and Allura’s mind is still waking up as she throws on her slippers and follows the girl through the Garrison’s darkened halls.

This is not her first time accompanying Pidge as she scans the night sky for answers.  Tonight the air is cool and crisp and Allura huddles closer to the girl’s side as the machine whirls.

She still is when two teenage boys burst into existence behind them, throwing Pidge into a fit as she chews the two out and Allura watches as her mind buzzes to life with an acute sense of _fond_.

“You were _following_ me?”

“Follow is a loose term,” Lance Mcclain says, cocking his hip and lifting a brow. “Besides, _you’re_ the guy sneaking out to _canoodle_ with his girlfriend.”

“She’s not my _girlfriend_ \--”

Allura can’t help but laugh.

 

\---

 

She is there, sitting beside Pidge as her little computer detects _Voltron_ over and over again, and anticipation thrums beneath Allura’s skin.

This is it.

She’s here, this time.  It’s happening and it’s happening _now_ and Allura is _here_ , as the Garrison’s alarm blares, here, running alongside the trio of cadets as they make their way towards the crash sight to save Takashi Shirogane from his own stupor.

Still there as Pidge yanks her onto Keith Kogane’s hovercraft and they zoom off into the desert.

When there are Garrison vehicles hot in pursuit, she is the one to grab Pidge’s scanning gear, working deftly as she causes said aircrafts to crash into clouds of sand before Keith can cook up a plan himself.

“How the hell’d you do that?” Lance yells over the wind, eyes wide.

“Those crafts are all connected through the same online system for communication,” she replies, shielding her eyes from whips of wind. “If you can log in and cut off one channel, it kinda makes _everything_ collapse.  Domino style. Jams the whole system.”

“Something like that’s gotta have serious security measures to prevent that very thing from happening,” Hunk cuts in, expression curious.

“Of course it does.  But every system’s got its holes.”

“And you know those offhand?”

“I would hope so,” Allura says, grinning. “Seeing as I helped build them and all.”

Both boys blink rather owlishly before Keith shouts a _hold on_ and they careen across a canyon.

 

\---

 

If Shiro recognizes who Pidge is, he doesn’t say anything, much to the girl’s visible relief.

He’s just finished introducing himself to the trio of cadets after waking when the man turns to Allura, before letting out a sigh.

“I should have known you’d have something to do with this,” he says, exasperated.

“You’re free now, aren’t you?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Lance interjects, expression suspicious and eyes narrowed. “Shiro knows Mystery Girl?”

Hunk, curious, peers over at her. “Yeah, wait, are you a cadet or something? ”

Allura shrugs. “Or something.”

“ _Great_! That’s only, like, mega-suspicious.”

“Leave her alone, Lance,” Pidge says, scowling. “All you need to know is that she’s way smarter than you could ever be. Not that that’s a challenge or anything.”

Lance squawks, and Allura can only smile as Shiro ruffles her hair.

“She’s one of Samuel Holt’s daughters,” the man states, as the squabbling stops and multiple pairs of eyes in the room stray to her form.

They are surprised, confused, pitying.

Even Keith, glancing at her with something she knows his is muted form of _understanding_.

Lance drops his suspicion, eyeing her with something far less wary as focus shifts to the many theories and maps scattered across Keith’s walls, and puzzle pieces begin to fit together.

Words and thoughts of _Voltron_ , purpose to find its source.

Her brain is fully awake now, functioning on adrenaline and hope and the awareness that this is _here_ and it’s happening _now_.

There is still the reminder that she can only observe as an outsider but never take the place of who she once was before, of course, but Allura supposes she has reached the point where she no longer minds.

(Though maybe it will be a tad odd to see her own face and meet her past-- former?-- self.)

There’s a hand finding home in her own.

Pidge squeezes.

_So, so close_.

 

\---

 

They’re nearly to the cave and she can practically feel Blue singing beneath her skin when Keith’s hovercraft starts beeping and the boy is swearing and the ground beneath them trembles.

“The Garrison,” the boy states, cursing some more.  “How are they…?”

The school had never been focused on domestic defense measures-- there was never seemingly a need to, after all.

Aiding in the installation and development of a more advanced detection and tracking system had been a simple necessity for the distant future in Allura’s mind.

She had thought nothing more of it.  Never even imagined its possible repercussions.

Didn’t imagine it would be used _now_ , as a fleet of Garrison aircrafts trail through the desert behind them.

If they catch up--

If they catch up, all is lost.  Over. Shiro will be locked away, and their names will be draped in treason as they’re all undoubtedly kicked from the Garrison’s grounds.

Voltron will never come to fruition.

The world will fall to ash.

 

\---

 

“You can’t,” Pidge says, eyes wide.

They’ve turned a corner and the Garrison aircrafts are gone from sight, though the distinct _hum_ of air against sand can still be heard in the distance.  The entrance to the cave is dark and inviting, and through the layers of ground keeping them separated, she can hear Blue calling out to her.

“You go ahead.  I’ll stay back.”

“I’m not letting you do that.”

“It’s a cave, Pidge.  They’re probably going to find us all regardless,” she says dryly, smiling.  “The least I can do is slow them down so you can find out what’s inside.”

The girl’s expression is pensive.

“This is the most important thing, right? This is how we find Matt and Dad.”

The girl is still frowning and they both know she Allura is right.  

Lance and Hunk and Keith have already entered into the deeper parts of the cavern, leaving only Shiro to loiter nearby.

“I’ll see you soon, alright?” the girl says, as she backs away and chews on her thumb.

Allura smiles and very carefully ignores the pain igniting in her chest.

 

\---

 

Allura watches through the tinted glass of a Garrison hovercraft, handcuffs tight around her wrists, as the officers currently strategizing a siege on the cave break into shouts and cries and a Blue Lion streaks through the sky, into the heavens above.

 

\---

 

She tells them this:

If they don’t lock her up and leave her to rot away in a prison, she will keep her lips shut.

Iverson does not, evidently, find the agreement to be a very palatable one.  Nor do the other senior officers attempting to wring her neck.

Perhaps in a different set of circumstances, there would be cuffs on Allura’s wrists and a cell in some compound deep in the middle of nowhere with her name on it before she could even open her mouth.

But not now, when the media is breathing down the Garrison’s shoulder, with three officers killed by error in the past year and three more cadets suddenly missing underneath the school’s nose.

Allura is a former diplomat of the galaxy and a ruler trained in the art of talking circles around others.

She feels no guilt in twisting the arms of these ignorant humans.

Especially when she is so completely aware of what is soon to come.

 

\---

 

As far as anyone is concerned, Allura was cooped up inside the barracks all night, just as bereaved as any other when the news breaks the next day and Colleen Holt sobs into her shoulder.

 

\---

 

The house is quiet and Bae-Bae is constantly whining at the door.

The Garrison cannot quite expel her, and they seem to recognize such.  It would be too suspicious, too out-of-the-blue, too much a cause for controversy.  

What they certainly can do, however, is limit her access to facilities, with suggestions that are more so _threats_ to take time off to grieve.

Colleen tries to save face, she knows; her shoulders are set and her mouth a line and she only weeps when the door is shut and there is no one there to bear witness.  

She is trying to be strong for Allura, and it makes her heart break all the more.

Allura shoves the grief aside, so very aware that there is no time to feel pained over what isn’t quite a lost.

There simply isn’t time for that nowadays.

Samuel Holt will be home soon enough and with him will be the impending Galran force, ready to strip the earth to its bones.

They try to keep the alien technology project-- centered around Shiro’s Galran escape pod scorched into the earth-- under wraps and away from her hands.

But Allura has the fire of Altea still burning through her veins and a passion willing to burn through any barriers in her way.

She has a family to protect, after all.

 

\---

 

Samuel Holt comes home with more than a few new scars and a nicely groomed beard as souvenirs.

Colleen nearly collapses when he proclaims, with misty eyes, that Pidge and Matt are alive and well, traveling the galaxy as the universe’s defenders. Their embrace is something warm and heartfelt and leaves Allura watching with some much _fondness_.

There is more than a little madness shining in the man’s eyes and an urgency driving his senses as he rattles off all that has occured within the past two years.  As he states what is to come.

And after the Garrison is quick in their attempts to silence his voice and warn him of possible dissent, Allura is the one sitting between Samuel and Colleen as they broadcast news of _Voltron_ and _Galra_ and _rebellion_ across the world.

 

\---

 

The man, newly empowered and eager to start preparations for the war to come, cannot hide his shock when he steps into the developing rooms to find crafts and weapons and detectors up to date with the best of Galran tech, and infused with every bit of Altean that Allura can remember.

Samuel turns to her with a quirked brow, a tad bit surprised and more than a little impressed.

She can only shrug with a small, knowing smile.

They wanted _alien_ so badly, and so _alien_ she gave to them.

 

\---

 

There is no protest when he delegates the power to oversee the construction of defense measures and a ship as large as the sky to her hands. 

“--it comes from a planet called Altea, and it has the technological prowess you wouldn’t _believe_ …”

He gives her the drive full of data and analytics and algorithms so familiar she nearly feels as if she is home again.  

The blueprints are hefty and thick and stained with her own sweat, and it possesses everything she has yearned for in her sixteen years of existence within this body, on this earth. 

This is it.  This is all it can be.  This is what she can do, reach up for the stars in the sky and do all she can to guide them to earth.

“I call it _The Atlas…_ ” 

She hands it over to Samuel with bright eyes and a heart full of hope and an awareness that things can be different under her hands.

Change, warm and malleable, shining in her palms.

 

\---

 

Petals of stardust blooming in her heart. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait my dudes; had to finish up final exams and this ended up being longer than i thought it would be.
> 
> hope everyone had/is having a happy holiday season and is ready for the new year :)


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